Joy of Obedience & Decisions - Day One

We missed Evie today! Right at the beginning during Circle Time, the kids were asking where Eve was. There were comments: "I miss Evie!" and "I'm so sad she's sick." They all decided to make a special note for her and signed their names.

It was an awesome day! All of the kids played so well together. This was my first time having them since the very first week, and I was very impressed at how well they know the procedures for Joy School. They're becoming so seasoned. :)

We focused today on equating RULES and LAWS. Joy School has RULES/LAWS, as do our families, the community we live in, school, etc. I asked what some of the rules are at their homes, and received some good answers. We read the book "No No Yes Yes" by Leslie Patricelli. It goes over "No No"s and "Yes Yes"s. We talked about what the rule was in each one. We also did the story in the Joy School module called "A School Without Rules". At first, I asked if anyone would like to be in a school with no rules. All of the boys said they liked that idea. There were many pictures that went along with the story, so the kids put those on the board as we went along. It was clear that having no rules made things messy, dangerous, and takes away all of the fun. It also makes for a stern teacher. :) I asked again if they wanted to go to a school like this, and it was a clear "No!" We talked about how rules are very good -- they help us stay safe and keep us all happy.

The big emphasis was that if we KEEP/OBEY a rule/law, we are happy and safe. If we BREAK/DISOBEY a rule/law, we are not safe, we or others can get hurt, and we're sad. We used the example of a stoplight -- what happens if we follow it, or if we don't follow it. We spent quite a bit of time talking about different scenarios, and the kids really seemed to get it. We played "Musical Squares" with our JS mats and music to demonstrate & practice following the rules.

We then introduced the awesome behavior color system Jen made. It went right along with the concept of a stoplight. We want green because then we can go and do many different things. We don't want red, because we are stopped and removed from doing what we want. Yellow means slow down and watch ourselves, so on the behavior system, yellow meant getting a time out. All the boys had a yellow at some point, but I was proud of them for each quickly making it back to green. The girls were angels as usual. :) We also talked about the concept of repentance, by drawing with pencil and using our eraser. When we do something wrong, it makes us and others feel sad and sometimes hurt. We can repent by saying sorry and giving a hug, and not doing it again. Like erasing, repentance helps take the sad away. We made stoplights for our craft with mini-pictures of the JS rules on the back, reminding us to stay "green" and follow the rules.

You can talk more about and reemphasize your House/Family Rules before next time if you'd like!

The letter today was "L". We saw a quick Sesame Street clip about Bert & Ernie singing about L and other L words. The kids did an amazing job writing Ls in their notebooks. They learned that they always have an L on their left hand with their thumb & pointer finger. Whoever had green on the behavior system at the end of Joy School received a Lollypop to take home. For snack, we had Lemonade and "ants on a Log" with celery, peanut butter, and Craisins. The kids each made their own, which was fun to see. They each took turns stirring and mixing the lemonade. They were all well-mannered today and Joseph even said, "What great manners!"

To get from one activity to another, we rode the "train" together by putting hands on shoulders and walking in a line. There were new leaders each time. That worked really well in transitioning them. It was a great day!

K is for Krispy Kreme

Can't think of a better way to wrap up our unit of goal striving and order than at Krispy Kreme! It was a long trek to get there, but I think we'd all agree that it was well worth the drive to catch one of those hot, fresh doughnuts right off the conveyer belt! We lucked out with the nicest manager who really spoiled the kids with a great presentation on how they make donuts at Krispy Kreme. The only thing he wouldn't do was give us the secret recipe! ;) We missed Jen, Cheyenne and Kai!

The various stages of doughnuts from yeast and flour all the way to a hot, frosted donut!

Waiting for the rising donuts to plop into the hot oil...

They fry on one side and then the machine flips them over to fry the other side. Emily cracked us all up after she saw the donuts get flipped and she exclaimed, "Well, I didn't see that coming!"

Mmmm... the waterfall of frosting...

Everyone enjoying their donuts and milk!

The Joy of Order and Goal Striving Day 3

Even though we worked our goals again today and awarded some more stickers on our goal charts for practicing over the weekend, our focus for today was "order". So we read lots of great stories about messy rooms, talked about what order is versus messy and how order makes us much more happier. I shared the "secret" with them and that is "things will always stay in order if you only take one thing to play with at a time and then put it back in it's place before you take out another toy". We agreed to make a group goal to keep order at Joy School by using "the secret". Next, we had the special privilege of going upstairs just this once to take a look at Grant's room to see if it was all in order. Everything was in it's place... phew! For music time, we sang "Going on a Bear Hunt" which the kids absolutely LOVED!

For snack, we had rainbow jigglers so that I could show them the order of the rainbow...

Next, we went outdoors for awhile to play red light, green light.

We also practiced the letter K today and talked about the much anticipated field trip to Krispy Kreme to see the order of making donuts. Eve, Emily, Kai and Isabel were rewarded their gold stars on their goal charts after demonstrating that they had achieved their goals. Grant and Joesph are going to work hard and keep practicing writing their names... they will get there! We ended the day with our craft where we talked about how sometimes it's okay to make a mess as long as we clean up afterwards. So, the kids drew faces on their snowmen and we used glue and snowglitter to finish our winter scenes. Everyone helped clean up the glitter off the table and floor when we were finished.

The Joy of Order and Goal Striving Day 2

Today, the children arrived ready to share their goals. I was very impressed with everyone's goals. Kai chose to work on controlling his body movements and to sit quietly during listening time. Isabel chose to memorize her phone number and address. Joseph chose to learn how to write his name. Emily chose to help her mom by putting away her own clean laundry. Eve chose to also learn her phone number and address and Grant chose to learn how to write his name. During learning time, we spent a good amount of time practicing our goals and earning stickers on our charts for practicing. But before we did that, we did something really fun... we talked about working together as a team to achieve goals. The kids sat in a circle on the ground and made ice cream by passing around an ice cream ball. They rolled it, shook it and passed it to their neighbors. It was a lot of work and it took quite a bit of time, but the reward was sweet! The kids LOVED their vanilla ice cream with sprinkles snack. Isabel announced that it was the best snack ever at Joy School!!

We even had enough for everyone to have seconds! (Hope I didn't ruin any lunch appetites!)

For craft, we made snowmen for our snowmen scene... but they didn't come home that day. I explained that there was an "order" to our winter scene and that we would finish them the next day at Joy School.

The Joy of Order and Goal Striving Day 1

Today was just lovely! Following our regular circle time activities, the children did a little show and tell with their Christmas presents. Grant shared his Star Wars Lego's... Eve shared her ladybug pillow pet... Joseph shared his robot... Isabel shared her baby penguin... and Emily showed up right in time to share her Rapunzel costume. It was a really fun activity and tied in well with reviewing sharing and gift giving and the feelings of happiness related to giving that they discussed at Liz's house before Christmas.

After a few stories related to setting goals, I was pleased with how well they really seemed to grasp the concept of goals. After I announced that they would be picking their own goal to work on, they continued to throw around a few ideas for the rest of the day. During our craft, which consisted of stickers, Eve suggested that Emily's goal be sharing stickers. That had me cracking up, especially since Emily protested that that is not what she wanted her goal to be.

The letter of the day was J. So perfect since J-J-JANUARY starts with the letter J. Naturally, our snack was J-J-Jell-o. Which Emily was thrilled about having just been at the dentist that morning. They also really had a fun time playing outside together, even though it was chilly. I made up a batch of fake snow in favor of winter, which they all had a fun time taking turns to play in.

For crafttime, we decorated the frames to their goal charts, which will come home at the end of the unit. The instruction was for them to go home and decide on a goal to work on for next time... I was excited to find out what they would choose.

Nativity

Nativity play for "the Grandmas"

Joy of Sharing & Service - Day 3

Today was the third and last day of our unit, which will also include a field trip to a Board & Care facility to debut our Christmas play. During the opening, after welcome and calendar, I explained to everyone that on Thursday we were going to a Board and Care facility to put on our play and sing for the grandmas at the facility. They were all very curious about these "grandmas" that they would be singing for and this opened a lengthy discussion about these particular residents and their own grandmas of course. All of the children were also very excited about the upcoming holidays and what they would be doing for Christmas.

We missed Kai in the morning as he wasn't feeling well, but he was able to come later in the day for the Christmas play rehearsal.

Following a Christmas book, we proceeded to work on our craft project for the day. The craft was to paint with glitter paint on cinnamon-scented pine cones. I explained to the children that we would be giving these pine cones as gifts to the grandmas and employees at the Board & Care. I also told then that they could pick one pine cone to take home to their families. We also practiced the Christmas songs that would be part of the Christmas play.

Today, we also had the culmination of our "secret buddies" and each of the Joy Schoolers received a Christmas present book from their secret buddy. They were all very excited about this.

After snack and some outside play, Eve's mom came to help us with our Christmas play, which she had written for them. The children all chose parts. Emily was Mary, Joseph was Joseph, Grant and Kai were wise men, Eve was a Shepherdess and Isabel was an angel. The practice went really well and everyone seemed into their part.

We look forward to a big Christmas spectacular!

Joy of Sharing & Service Day 2

Hi everyone.
Day two was another fun day with the all the children. Unlike Tuesday when most seemed pretty wiggly during circle time, today they were all pretty quite and attentive. We followed circle time with practicing our Christmas songs. Eve, Emily and Grant and especially good with the hand movements to "In a Little Stable" and Isabel seemed to be getting a little better with them.

After singing time, we read a story about how the tradition of the Christmas tree was started in the United States. According to the story, German immigrants to the US brought the tradition with them which was adopted by others. After the story and our discussion we had snack and recess (which is I think their favorite time). The boys seemed to be playing well together today. Everyone loved doing yard work in the backyard with Isabel's kid-size yard tool set. We also had a practice in sharing as their are only four tools which they had to take turns with.

For the lesson portion of the day, the children practiced writing the letter H. Eve and Emily were great with writing the letters. Grant did a great job with his letter H after I briefly showed him how to practice tracing the letter first. Joseph definitely tried hard to write the letters and got the concept of two lines down and joined in the middle, but just needs a little practice. (He's probably well ahead of his age group as he's still 3.) Kai wrote one good H to show me that he can do it. We also cut some chains on our chain of sharing and service ideas as we accomplished those certain tasks. We read from the lesson manual the story of Heather and Alice, which is a story of sharing and service. Everyone loved taping the story pictures to the board as a I read the story. We finished the lesson time with the book "The Giving Tree" which they all loved. Everyone was super quite listening to the story and had great answers to the questions I asked them during the story about service and sharing.

We followed the story about the giving tree and also incorporated our story about Christmas trees and boughs, with the craft project. I gave each child some decorations for the trees and they were to "share" their decorations with everyone else so that everyone's tree was beautiful.